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The Land Rover Desert survival book

May 27, 2012

Survival Tip: Eat this book

By Shahzad Sheikh

Possibly the single best piece of desert survival kit comes from Land Rover – the edible survival guide book!

At first glance it’s just another survival guide book with all the basics for staying alive in the Arabian Desert should you get stuck or stranded. And how might such an occurrence happen? Well as the book says:

‘There’s treachery and peril everywhere.

‘You could suddenly plummet hundreds of metres into a sinkhole. Get submerged in a collapsing sand dune. Or get disorientated in a sandstorm and run out of fuel.

Okay, suitably inspired, if you dare venture out into the desert and do get lost or stuck, the book has a map of the Arabian desert which handily tells you that ‘you are somewhere on this map’.

But it does have useful tips like:

‘If a plane or a helicopter flies nearby, raise both your arms in a ‘Y’ shape. Don’t shout, they can’t hear you.’

Plus how to set up a shelter, build a solar still to get water, what symptoms to expect if you don’t get any food, how to build traps to catch animals, how spiders taste, how to cook lizards, first aid info, motivational words from the likes of Winston Churchill, and of course, how to start a fire.

It even comes in reflective packaging similar to army rations, which could be used to signal for help, and the metal spiral binding it can be used for cooking.

And if all else fails: ‘Eat this book. That’s right, it’s edible. It’s made of potato starch, water and vegetable oil. It packs a whopping 372 calories,’ which as the book points out, is as much as a cheeseburger – and probably tastes just as good depending on which burger joint you normally go to.

However the book points out that you shouldn’t it all at once, but ration yourself on a few pages a day. Oops, didn’t read that bit… burp…!